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Worker Bees

Dear Reader,

I am frustrated, no, I’m beyond that. I am severely angry. In fact, if I hadn’t promised someone I wouldn’t cut myself this week id be hacking right into my body. Today I learned, on my day off, that a complaint has been made about me by another staff member, a staff member that does nothing.

So what has made me angry? Well, work in general really. The one thing I keep telling my doctor makes me happy, the one thing I keep defending, the one thing I refused to stop doing even though it’s slowly causing carnage in my brain.

As you can see mentally I’m not exactly stable right now, by stable I mean people have probably been sectioned for being less stable than I am right now. With this level of instability comes a certain amount of stress, anxiety and depression. Because of this I find myself having to take frequent 5 minute breaks, which to be fair, is embarassing to admit, I don’t want to admit that I have to compose myself so I either A) don’t burst into a hysterical fit of tears. B) Don’t get so angry I bite someones head off and call them something terrible. And C) so I can hide my weaknesses and not expose them to people who will use them against me to take anything they can from me.

I work in a land of bitterness, a place very few are happy for anyone who achieves anything. A place of constant out doing. Got an illness? Someone has it worse? Got a family problem? Someone has it worse. Had your leg chopped off by a mad axe wielding half man half pig? Someone probably had both their legs and arms hacked off. Don’t ever think you have it bad. Because there will always be someone here in this place I work, with 10 employees that has it worse than you. The place is divided into two “camps” if you will. The people who work. And the people who think they work. As part of the metaphorical “worker bee” camp. It pisses me off to see the lazy “Drone bee” camp does nothing.

Yes, I just compared my workplace to a hive. For people who don’t know, let me explain the difference between worker bees and drones. A worker bee does everything, in a hive the only thing a worker bee doesn’t do is lay eggs, it feeds the queen, it feeds the drones, it removed dead bee carcasses from the hive, it keeps the hive cool with water, it grooms the queen and it fetches pollen. A drone does, well, nothing actually. It doesn’t even have a stinger. Its only purpose in life is to mate with the queen.

So why is my workplace like a hive? Because the worker bees do all the damn work whilst the drones kiss the arse of the “queen” aka my boss.

The biggest problem in this scenario is that the “queen” doesn’t care, the queen needs “drones” as well as worker bees. An unfortunate situation. In fact a quote from the book “Beekeeping for Dummies” sums up this situation entirely. “drones are tolerated and allowed to remain in the hive because they may be needed” yep, that is right, the drones are needed to work on the till, whilst the worker bees do the important things, paperwork, stock replenishment, delivery organisation.

I sound like such a horrible person talking this way about people and if I wasn’t beyond frustrated with the place I wouldn’t do it. My stress level is through the roof, I know work has contributed to it and I insist on still defending it.

But I shouldn’t let this get to me, and in all honesty, I think it’s only the topping on the sandwich of stress that is my life. I think for me, it’s easier to complain about work because its the scapegoat for all of my anger and stress. I know it doesn’t help, but it isn’t the whole problem. I guess its just easier to eloquently demolish the place that keeps me stabalised then it is to admit that there are other things in my life that destroy my mental health.

10 thoughts on “Worker Bees”

I just had the funniest visual of what those drones look like kisseing the queen’s arse….. LMAO… I’m sorry. I know it’s not funny to you. I’m so sorry. You should be angry because I know how it feels – my job is the same way. If it helps you destress about the other stuff in your life then do it!!!! (destress either isn’t a word or is misspelled – FYI). Anyway, I am thinking of ya! Hang in there. The awesome thing is that you are getting up and going to work! I can’t even do that half the time…. 🙂

You have described my former workplace to perfection!!! It was so bad that I consider that terrible workplace to be a large part of why I am so ill. It was exactly the wrong place for me to be working. If I had transferred to a better office, I might have been okay because it wasn’t the duties or even the customers that hurt me. It was the co-workers and the management in my particular office that did me in. There is no working “with” toxic drones. I suspect my drones were narcissists and people who had been molested as children. Actually two of them for sure were molested–they told me they were. Ruined people. Poisonous. Oh boy. This is your post. I have my own about my workplace. So, I will just say, I am so glad you had the strength not to cut yourself this week. You really accomplished something great in the face of hopeless workplace dynamics.

I have been there so many times! I absolutely love the bee analogy it is so true. I lived to work and couldn’t understand why anyone would get up everyday to sit in an office and do nothing! It would then really piss me off that they would get promoted ahead of me! What you say about using work as a target is true aswell. Since I had to stop working I’ve become much more aware of what is really causing my triggers, why I wake up and feel like screaming before I even get out of bed. Work is a big distraction and it’s not always a good distraction.

I loved my job. I loved the company. I loved the people I worked with. It was great. Until it wasn’t. Sometimes it doesn’t matter how good the environment is, the situation overall just becomes bad for you. One of the hardest and best things I ever did was quit…two years after I realized I probably should.

I think your analogy is perfect! Work is an easy target but you know what, it doesn’t change the fact that your job is one of the most stressful things in your life right now. It’s all a process so try no to be to hard on yourself. Hoping that you’re going to get some time away from that place soon; just enough time to regroup.